New details about Mercury’s work for a mysterious foundation

A FOREIGN LOBBYING UPDATE:Mercury has provided some new details about its lobbying for a little-known group called the Libertas Foundation in a DOJ filing. Former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) engaged in a flurry of lobbying shortly after joining Mercury in February, less than two months after he left the Senate. Vitter called and emailed several officials at the State Department and the National Security Council between Feb. 16 and Feb. 28 regarding the “U.S. Government Position on Macedonia Government Formation,” according to the filing. His efforts included two calls to K.T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser at the time and an ally of Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who had been forced out earlier in February. McFarland herself left in April.

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— The filing follows earlier reports “by BuzzFeed News and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project [that] pointed out that Mercury did not disclose a foreign agent in" its original filing, as BuzzFeed News’ John Hudson points out. “‘This does not track. There’s no foreign principal here,” Brett Kappel, a partner at Akerman who specializes in government ethics, told BuzzFeed News at the time. 'They’re admitting they’re doing work that’s beneficial to [foreign] countries, but they haven’t said who their foreign principal is.’ The new form still does not list a foreign agent — it simply lists the Libertas Foundation, of which little is known, as the entity the firm is working on behalf of.” Full story.

Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. Don't let lazy summer Fridays keep you from sending tips and gossip to tmeyer@politico.com. You can also follow me on Twitter: @theodoricmeyer.

TIME WARNER’S MERGER WITH AT&T AT LITTLE RISK DESPITE CNN FEUD: “President Donald Trump has only limited tools for venting his often-expressed fury at CNN, even as his administration weighs whether to approve AT&T's bid to purchase the network's parent company, Time Warner,” POLITICO’s Steven Overly and Margaret Harding McGill report. “White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has pushed the idea of blocking the merger, a White House official told POLITICO on Thursday, after months in which the president has accused the news network of airing ‘fake’ and ‘dishonest’ coverage of his administration. But the official added that Bannon hasn't mentioned the matter in recent days and that it does not appear to be at the top of his agenda.”

— “And many industry observers say Trump's Justice Department has no obvious antitrust arguments for blocking AT&T's $85 billion deal, which would give the telecom and wireless giant control of an entertainment conglomerate whose holdings include CNN, HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio. ‘Just because you don't like CNN doesn't mean you can block a merger,’ said Rich Greenfield, a media and tech analyst at the investment research firm BTIG. 'You still need a legal basis, and calling CNN “fake news” or “FNN” doesn't make the transaction illegal.’” Full story.

SHAUB’S DEPARTURE RAISES CONCERNS ABOUT ETHICS OFFICE: The resignation of Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub on Thursday has set “off alarm bells among watchdog groups, who fear the integrity of the agency’s ethics work is now at risk,” The Hill’s Megan Wilson reports. “Several nonprofits — and the lead Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — issued statements Thursday expressing concern that there may not be enough pressure to follow ethics rules without a permanent director in place. … ‘His resignation places the integrity of the OGE in doubt. President Donald Trump now has the opportunity to select the next head of the ethics agency,’ said Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen.” Full story.

ONE MORE SHOT IN THE DEBATE OVER JIMMY WILLIAMS’ VOX PIECE: Last week, PI linked to a Vox piece written by Jimmy Williams, a former lobbyist who now hosts the "DecodeDC" podcast, in which he described lobbying as "legalized bribery." Jim Clarke, the senior vice president of public policy for the American Society of Association Executives, took exception and wrote in a response published in PI on Wednesday that he found Williams' "duplicity" hard to ignore.

— Now Williams is responding in kind. "Mr. Clarke's response clearly shows he actually didn't read my column,” Williams writes. “Do lobbyists have huge expense accounts? Yes. If Mr. Clarke doesn't think so, then I'm happy to write another column detailing which restaurants lobbyists spend most of their time in. Do lobbyists walk into fundraisers without checks in hand and talk about policy? Umm, no. Sorry, folks, but that's legalized bribery, and if he fails to see that, then he's part of the problem.

— “I go out of my way to make clear most lobbyists are NOT like the disgraced Jack Abramoff. I also make it clear in my piece if money is taken out of policy and politics, lobbyists should still be a thriving and vital part of the political process. Mr. Clarke's robust defense of the status quo tells me one thing: He's absolutely fine with the way things are in Washington, D.C. And that should show everyone just how out of touch he is with what the rest of the country thinks about this corrupt system.”

IT’S NEWT: How much is Newt Gingrich charging to share his insights on understanding President Donald Trump? BuzzFeed News’ Tarini Parti (a PI alum) and Henry Gomez report Gingrich demands “$60,000 and first-class travel for two if the speech is on the East Coast; $75,000 if it’s west of Chicago. Understanding Trump also happens to be the title of his latest book, which he name-dropped three times in the first 30 minutes of one of these speeches at Cornell University — three months before the book’s June release. (The third time even he laughed.)”Full story.

JOBS REPORT

— The National Music Publishers’ Association has added Jonathan Cohen as vice president and senior counsel and Shannon Sorensen as vice president of government affairs and counsel. Cohen was previously a lawyer for Covington & Burling in New York. The association has also promoted Katharine McClenny to director of communications.

— The Alliance to Save Energy has hired Ben Somberg as communications manager. He was previously the press secretary at the American Association for Justice.

— Laura Arth has joined Global Vision Communications as vice president. She was previously vice president of sales and marketing at Associated Luxury Hotels International.

About The Author

Theodoric Meyer covers lobbying for POLITICO and writes the POLITICO Influence newsletter. He previously covered the 2016 campaign for POLITICO and worked as a reporting fellow for ProPublica in New York. He was a lead reporter on ProPublica’s “After the Flood” series on the federal government’s troubled flood insurance program, which won the Deadline Club Award for Local Reporting. He’s a graduate of McGill University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.